


Once You Love the Sea

by Jeannyboy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, F/F, F/M, Hurt, Longing, Love, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Time Passing, combination of times, depictions of sickness, mermaid, no set place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 06:36:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9309749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeannyboy/pseuds/Jeannyboy
Summary: Lucy is a girl that lives outside of the flow. Instead of going to Burns' School for Ladies, she desperately wants to be like her father, fishing in the morning and tending the garden in the evening. She lives on adventure and myth, putting stock in the fairy tales her grandmother told her as a child. Her rebellion leads her to discovering the life she wants, making her a legend herself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Started from the prompt: While you were fishing on your boat, you unexpectedly see an angry mermaid flipping you off. 
> 
> I started this months ago and couldn't get past 3 paragraphs until the other day I sat down and the story poured out of me. This is the first original short story that I've written and felt super excited to share. Everything is intentional and I'm pretty sure I covered all bases with this, if not I apologize. 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this and that it inspires you in your life some way. That's what I aspire to do and I hope that that is what I've accomplished with this work.

The sun rode high in the cloudless sky, turning the skin on the back of her neck an angry red. Sweat stung the raw surface making her ache to strip the clothes on her back and swim in the murky water that the fishing line had disappeared into. The water that poured over her skin from the canteen is warm from sitting in the sun, and a waste of hydration. She sips the lukewarm water and casts a glance at another boat sitting a few hundred feet from her, closer to the shore than herself.

Her father sits in that boat, his head bent to his chest, fishing cap shadowing his face. He didn't care if he got a little sun, he was hardened from years of fishing on sunny days, his skin deeply tanned. He was out there every day until noon to catch them dinner, and every evening was spent tilling and taking care of the small garden.

When she was a young girl, Lucy used to enjoy coming out every few weekends to help her daddy fish but then she was old enough to attend “Burns' School for Ladies.” Her mother wouldn't let her come out then. She said that it wasn't a woman's place to bring food to the table. That was a mans' job.

To say the least, she wasn't happy the other day when she found Lucy in the barn in front of an old, cracked mirror with some rusty scissors she'd found, cutting the long sandy blonde hair that had fallen all the way to her hips before then. It was so short now that it did nothing to keep the sun off her burning skin. Her ears pulsed with heat; she turned towards the ocean, casting the sun on her face to torture it for a while instead.

She'd snuck out there with her father that morning instead of going to school. Her mother was outraged about her hair and had actually cried, sobbing “No suitable man is going to want a wife that looks like a boy.” Good. Why did she need a man to care for her if she knew how to catch her own food?

Lucy shook her head then just recalling the memory, beads of sweat zigzagging down her face as she did so. The collar of her blouse was wet from perspiration, tugging at her like a choker of misery. _I don't see how dad does this every day_ she thought . _I don't figure it does much to complain though seeing as I'd much rather be suffering the heat out here than in the stuffy class rooms as Burns. At least out here I don't have to wear dresses that cuts off my breath._

Making sure the pole is secure, she slumps over in the boat, arms hanging over the edge, fingers dipping in the cool water. It feels nice, so she pulls one hand back to drip the water on her exposed skin.

It's when she put her hand back in the water that she see's the tail of a fish break the surface. Sitting up straighter, she squints in the sun, shadowing her eyes to see better. Lucy doesn't see it again but a few moments later when she counts her luck that she even _saw_ a fish, her line becomes taught and the reel starts to turn.

In her haste, she grabs for the rod so quick that she distursb its resting place and sends it careening into the water. It's quickly swallowed up by the muddy waves being kicked up and she's sitting there, hands out by her sides in disbelief, mouth open like the fish she's supposed to be catching. The pole doesn't resurface like it's supposed to.

That's when she sees it: a person in the water, nearer to the ocean, perfectly silhouetted between the peninsulas of land that make up the lagoon. It wouldn't be odd if anyone ever came out there to swim. There was the occasional ship way out in the surf but no one ever close enough to see.

It was even stranger when they dip back into the water and appear a bit closer, this time close enough for Lucy to make out that it's a girl. A girl holding up her middle finger, a look of disdain on her face before she spits a stream of water at her, diving back down into the water, the tail of a fish breaking the water where her feet should've been.

“Lucy!” Her father calls her name, breaking whatever spell she had been under. Why hadn't she called out? Did she even see anything or was it the heat getting to her?

“Lucille! It's ready to come back to shore!” Her father was getting antsy and she didn't blame him. He was a creature of habit and liked to do things in a certain order at the same time or he had a bad day. Simple as can be.

“Coming!” Lucy looked once more at the spot the girl had been before dipping the oar into the water to steer herself back towards home.

 

 

It was night time before she could go back out. After the tongue lashing her father had given her about losing the pole, she had to sneak out after he and her mother had gone to bed. She was thankful for the full moon as she pushed off from the small dock where the boats gently rocked in the water.

The moon lit up the surface of the lagoon and the fireflies at the edge of the trees gave the night a magical air. She sighed as a cool breeze blew itself against her sun baked skin, giving her new life to work her sluggish muscles hard enough to row to where she was sure she had seen a mermaid earlier.

After they had gotten to the shore and were taking care of the garden, that's all she could think about. Surely it wasn't really a mermaid. She was sure it was just her imagination running wild from the heat and boredom.

Yet looking around her now, it didn't seem like such an absurd idea. It seemed like all of the legends she'd been told as a child could come true around her and it would be normal. So she paddled her way back to the spot between the peninsulas, trying her hardest to let the oar sink easily into the water, making the smallest ripples as she pushed the boat through the water.

She had imagined that she could just return to this spot and sate her curiosity. However, when she pulled the oar into her lap, letting the boat drift to a stop, nothing was out in the water.

Lucy didn't know what she'd been thinking; that returning to the same spot several hours later, at night even, was going to yield seeing the same girl from before. That she would be waiting on her, like some love sick woman awaiting the arrival of her sea traveling husband.

She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until the water splashed her face and she roused to see the endless expanse of ocean and sky. The milky wash of day had spilled across the horizon, the sun still struggling to surface her head from sleep.

While she had slept, the tide had pulled her out towards the sea where she now sat further up the shore of the peninsulas, rocking gently in the saltwater as the waves knocked against the boat. Looking towards the shore, she could barely make out the tiny figure of her father standing on the dock. She knew she needed to get back but when she looked around, she couldn't find the oar. It took her longer trying to paddle with her hands on either side of the boat, muscles straining at her awkward position, knees objecting to being braced against the bow of the small boat.

Her father's face was a mask of anger and confusion. “Lucille, what in the blazes were you doing out there? And where's the oar?” She could see her mothers anxious face peering out from the kitchen window.

Her head hung. “Nothing. I couldn't sleep so I took a nighttime row. And fell asleep. And must've dropped the oar and...” Her words fell away, knowing full well that he knew what had happened.

“I don't know what has gotten into you. First you're selfish enough to cut off your hair,”

“Selfish!? How-”

“Then, instead of punishing you, I let you come out here with me and you lose my pole,”

“I said I would-”

“Then you disobey me _again_ , and lose my oar.”

He had continuously raised his voice to talk over each of her interjections, so she gave up, sitting there quietly after he finished. There was no use arguing now.

“Now you need to go make a new one.”

She snapped her head up. “A new oar?”

“Yes, since you just love losing my things, you're going to hunt until you find a branch sturdy enough to make a new oar from and make a new one from it. I'll get you my knife and you can work on it until I say it's good enough.”

His hands finally moved from his hips to crossed over his chest, a silent indication that he was done arguing and that his decision was final.

Her head hung once more, muttering “Yes father” before pulling herself up onto the dock, securing the boat.

 

It was a hard hike around the band of wooded peninsula. They never came out here, not even to gather firewood, it was just easier to go down the actual coast, closer to town, where it wasn't as wild. But, seeing as this was punishment, Lucy couldn't really say anything against her father for sending her out here.

Briars and loose branches had already made her face sting and blood seep through scratches along her arms. Her fathers' whittling knife rested in a sheath along her belt but would've been no help at all. The knapsack on her back bore no more weight than the cloth it was made from and the apple, half a loaf of bread and water canteen that it held.

_“Since you're so keen to doing things you ought not do, you can stay out until it's finished. You want to be a man, you can live like one.”_

His words still rang in her ears, making them burn with rage.

It's not that she wanted to be a man, she just didn't want to be like the helpless girls that went to Burns' to learn to be a trained housewife, like a dog trained to obey its master. It made the burning in her ears ten times more fierce than it had been. She was so angry now, thinking about how her mother wanted her to be just like her, scared of the man she'd basically been auctioned off to, raising a daughter to be as timid as her.

_Serves them right for having such a rebellious child. All of us should be rebellious. We should change the way they think or we'll grow stagnant and die off like all the other coastal towns._

Her father had come home with news a few weeks prior, telling them that another fishing town had dried up due to over fishing their coast, trying to compete with the shipments the cities bought from deep sea fisherman. A lot of towns had been abandoned, unable to make a living from fishing, moving instead to the cities to work in fish markets for lower wages.

Lost in thought, Lucy had lost concentration of her hike and caught her foot on a broken branch, sending her reeling over the edge of a hidden ravine that ended at the waters edge. Her descent had ended with the majority of her body submerged by the surf, head aching from the blow it had sustained on the way down.

Her vision was growing foggy around the edge, the sounds of the birds and waves muted as her vision faded.

 

Lucy regained consciousness when the sun had shifted, casting shadows of trees into the water. She was cold, her clothes soaked, but she was no longer in the water. She was no longer lying with her back on the rocks, lower half of her body suspended in the waves. She was lying further out on the coast, sand in a mound around her like she had been pushed out of the water.

She stood, staggering a little from the pain in her body. She checked herself, sending a prayer up to the heavens that nothing was broken. Her body stung where the salt water had entered her cuts and lacerations from her hike.

Head still hurting, confusion still swamping her, Lucy turned from the water and headed back into the trees, searching for some wood to build a fire.

 

The sun was sinking below the water when she was finally trying to light the sticks and brush she had found to make a single person fire. Darkness had descended by the time she finally managed to get the flames licking hungrily at the kindling. Satisfied, she sat in the sand and rummaged through her pack for the few provisions that she had.

Lucy hadn't anticipated for her venture to take this long and cursed herself for not being more prepared. Her fathers words echoed in her ears, _you can stay out until it's finished. You want to be a man, you can live like one._ She scoffed at his voice inside her head.

_Fine. I'll camp out here. I'll find food and I'll make your stupid oar. I'll show you that I don't belong in a ladies' school._ Her thoughts were far more acrid than she had ever entertained them before. It hadn't been until her sixteenth birthday, when she'd started Burns', that she had grown so bitter towards her parents.

Before her birthday, she had been allowed to play outside and learn all the types of trees and flowers and fish with her own pole from the dock. She'd been able to run to town and scrap in the street with the boys if she pleased, far from the disapproving eyes of her mother. Her father had been happy when she told him she wanted to learn how to live outside. She hadn't been interested with things that little girls normally made their play.

She hated to wear dresses and instead, had traded a girl her new skirt for a pair of her older brothers' pants. They had been too long for her, a little snug in the hips, but she'd rolled the legs up and when she lost her baby fat had had to tie a piece of braided cord through the belt loops until her father found out and gifted her with a leather belt he had made himself, before he had met her mother.

The whittling knife was slick in her hand, the wood of the handle worn from years of use. The blade was sharp, newly whet before she had left, and pushed unyielding through the grain of a stick she'd found to practice on. She had never actually made an oar before, but felt that it shouldn't be that hard. The one that she'd lost had been made by her father when she was little. She could remember sitting beside him, at a fire similar to her own, carving the long piece of wood into a tool. She had fallen asleep by that fire long before he had finished

She cut away at the smaller stick now, trying to carve the handle thinner than what would make the flat paddle. Lucy looked up when she heard a splash in the water, different from the lap of waves against the beach.

Her head lifted quickly, eyes scanning the water warily. That's when she saw the distant lights of her own little cabin far away in the gloom of night. It was much farther than she had expected and she was only about halfway down the cape that created the lagoon her home sat on.

The splash sounded again and she looked around wildly, out towards the ocean where the moon shone over the water.

“Hello?” Her voice was barely over a whisper. She was out where no one should be able to answer. And no one did. Well not really. There was another splash, louder this time. She stood hastily, sending a small shower of sand into the fire. Squinting out towards the moon, she saw a head push gently from the water.

“Hello?” Lucy rose her voice, stumbling to the waters edge.

The head disappeared.

“Come back! I'm not going to hurt you! Are you a mermaid?” She wasn't shouting, but she wasn't using the confines of volume that was reserved for being in civilization. She crouched down where the waves lapped at the shore, planting her her knees in the damp sand. She was splashing the water with her fingers, trying to attract what she felt was not her imagination playing tricks on her.

She sat at the edge of the water until her legs grew numb. Then she rubbed feeling back into them, adding more kindling to the fire that had diminished in her time beside the waves. She fell asleep with her face pointed towards the water.

 

The splash of saltwater on her face was what roused Lucy the next morning. The sun had barely risen, still touching the border where sky and sea met. A second jet of water to her face had her sputtering, sitting up to rub the salt from her burning eyes.

When she could focus, she looked out at the waves and saw, not just the head, but the whole upper torso of a girl. She was holding herself up out of the water, the fins of her tail flicking water to and fro as it waved like a cats in the air. Her head perked up as soon as Lucy stood and she pushed herself back in the water.

“Wait!” Lucy's voice was a croak, scratchy with sleep. She threw her arm out in front of her.

The girl in the water tilted her head to the side before diving into the water, breaking the surface of the tide further down the beach.

Lucy followed her, running in the sand, leaving her campsite behind her. Her lungs were aching from running, trying to keep up with the mermaid as she dove in and out of the surf. She would look back to make sure Lucy was following, smiling before disappearing into the water again.

Finally, Lucy had to slow down her pace, glancing anxiously back to the waves as she tried to keep an eye both on the mermaid and the terrain that was rapidly changing beneath her feet. A path of large boulders jutted out into the tide, wet from the sea spray, and Lucy feared that one little slip would have her with more than just a few hours of unconsciousness.

The mermaid had stopped at the end of the rocks, waiting patiently for Lucy to reach her. When she made it, almost coughing from the exertion of the run, she climbed down to the lowest boulder, stepping carefully onto the slick surface. She was greedy in her want to see the mermaid and slipped, catching herself before more than just her foot slipped into the cold surf.

The mermaid now had her head submerged, her face only visible from her eyes up, watching Lucy warily.

“It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you.” Lucy cooed, a hand stretched out over the water. She patted the surface of the water like she was trying to gain the attention of an animal.

The mermaid surveyed her for several long minutes before she decided to swim closer, breaking the surface with her body until Lucy could see down to her collarbones that were sharp and prominent like the rocks around her. Her hair was dark and colorless; it looked more like the dank moss that grows on decaying wood that's been trapped beneath the dock back at Lucy's home. The skin that was stretched across her frame was like driftwood caught on the shore that had lost most of its color in the baking heat of the sun, it still retained a little of it's original hue, like a shadow beneath.

It was her eyes that really intrigued Lucy. They were like the ocean during a storm, the grey-green color of a tossing wave lit by lightning. Those eyes were looking at Lucy, taking in everything that she could see.

Lucy's hand was still stretched out towards the mermaid. A hand cut the water, reaching up to Lucy's own. Thin webbing stretched between fingers that ended more in a claw than a fingertip. She touched Lucy's skin, pulling back again before ringing her other hand out of the water, pulling at Lucy's fingers.

_The lack of webbing must be confusing._

Lucy wiggled her fingers, causing the mermaid to dart away. She chuckled, wiggling her fingers down in the water. The mermaid looked to her lips and pulled her own apart. Sharp teeth poked through the dark gums that lurked in her mouth. It took Lucy by surprise, her face falling. The mermaid looked confused, her smile disappearing just as quickly.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean....it was a surprise.” Lucy babbled. She wasn't even sure the mermaid could understand her so she fell quiet.

Until she looked like she was trying to speak.

The mermaid had opened her mouth, uttering noises that sounded like garbled coughing and some interspersed chirping like a dolphin. She was pointing to her chest, webbed fingers sprayed over her jagged bones.

“Are you trying to tell me your name?” Lucy asked, somewhat dumbly.

The mermaid tipped her head to the side, and in shaky words said “Nay-me.” It sounded more like 'neigh me' but it was unmistakable.

“Can you speak the human language?” Lucy leaned forward, eyes wide.

“Hyuuman wards.” She was definitely speaking to Lucy in her own tongue.

“My name in Lucy.” Lucy was now perched on the edge of the boulder, knees under her, hand bracing her from falling into the surf. She spoke slowly, enunciating the best she could.

“Leiu-sea.”

Lucy nodded eagerly. “Yes! Do you have a name?” She pointed at the mermaid.

She nodded, holding her hand over her chest, repeating the same noises from earlier.

Lucy grimaced. “I can't say that.”

The mermaid tilted her head again, before motioning from her mouth into the air, another stream of burbling Lucy couldn't understand. There was a rhythm to the way the sounds came out that made Lucy think of-

“A song?”

The mermaid smiled her ragged smile, nodding fiercely.

“My gramma used to tell me stories all the time. One was about this woman, a goddess actually, and her name was Maeve. She was the Goddess of Song. Can I call you that?”

The mermaid pursed her dark lips together, tapping them together before “Mmmmay.”

“Mae? Is that better to say?”

“Maaay.” She dragged the vowel out, testing it on her lips, then she made the clicking noise again, a happy smile making her dark eyes shine.

“Leiu-sea. Maaay.”

 

They sat like that for a while, Lucy and Mae figuring out how much Mae knew of the human language. She would say broken sentences like “Men a-fowl.” She'd scowl, making some gestures with her hands, using the burbling noises, hissing. “Take feesh, geeve poy-sun, muck”

Lucy told her why she was away from her home, making motions with her hands to try and explain better. “Sta-yeee” Mae dipped under the water, returning only a few minutes later, Lucy's pole and oar in her webbed hands.

“Dad's pole! The oar!” Lucy gently lifted them from the water, placing them so they wouldn't slip back into the water. They were tangled with seaweed but were fine.

“Did you take them?”

Mae's cheeks tinted pink and she nodded. “Thought you wahr man.” She made a fist, scowling. “Watched you. Pushed you from wa-teer, saw you wahr maid.” At this she covered her breasts with her hands, cupping them out of the water. They weren't large at all, only a slim covering of fat that gave more bulk than a man's own chest. Lucy looked down at her white blouse, seeing her own breasts rising slightly from the dingy fabric and knew instantly how she ended up out of the water after her fall and back onto the shore. For once, being a woman had been what had kept her from drowning; or being drowned.

“So you flipped me off, thinking that I was a man?”

“Flip off?” Mae's tail twitched out of the water and she did a small flip out of the water.

Lucy laughed. “Not quite.” She balled her fist and lifted her middle finger. Mae understood the gesture, but didn't seem to understand the meaning.

“Men, on land.” She gestured, an angry look drawing her eyes into a glare. “a-fowl to each otter.”

“Other. To each other.”

Mae smiled, “O-ther.”

 

With the return of the oar and pole, Lucy could go back home. And she did. She slept at the same camp she had made the night before, only returning after talking to Mae until the setting of the sun when she realized she wouldn't make it over the boulders without the lights help.

She waved good-bye to Mae, showing her the meaning, telling her it was only for a temporary time.

 

It was her mother that saw her return first. She was with her father in the garden, pulling vegetables for that nights' meal. She had lifted her hand to wipe some sweat from her brow and, squinting from the sun, saw Lucy coming from the wooded path to the peninsula.

“Lucille!” She had dropped the carrots and ran all the way to Lucy. She was crying again. Her mother grabbed her, hugging her tightly to her body, muttering 'I'm sorry' and 'I was so scared' over and over like it was a spell that would make everything better.

Lucy followed her father as he came up to them, chin tucked to his chest like he was trying to convince himself that he was still mad at her.

“He was going to come after you if you hadn't returned today.” Lucy heard her mother whisper into her ear.

Lucy stepped away from her mother, picking up the oar and pole from where they had landed on the ground as he mother had hugged her. “I found them.”

He grunted, scarred face tense, eyes soft. “You found them?”

“They had washed up on the shore out towards the tip.” She didn't tell him about Mae, knowing he wouldn't take her seriously.

“I see you made it safely. And you don't look any worse for wear.” He took in the cuts and bruises but seeing as nothing was broken or would scar, Lucy seemed to have passed whatever test her father had unknowingly placed her with. They didn't stand around for long before they all traipsed inside, Lucy following at the rear for a last look at the bay to see the calm water, the surface breaking as something leaped into the air, trailing droplets in the air before diving under the surf again.

 

Over the next few years, Lucy made it a habit to hike into the forest on the coast. She would gather things like berries, nuts and mushrooms for her mother, who had finally relented in letting Lucy do as she pleased at home in exchange for good behavior at Burns' School for Ladies.

Lucy's hair had grown out and she now had to tie it back off of her neck before she headed out in the evenings after her lessons. She had found a river that connected to the sea, on the opposite side of the lagoon where she would meet Mae. Mae was able to swim up the river and into a private tidal pool sheltered by the trees. It was their paradise.

Lucy had taught Mae what she could of her language, the opposite being harder for Lucy who couldn't chirp or gurgle. Mae was now able to form sentences so well that sometimes she would forget that Mae was a mermaid, bound to the water.

“I weesh I could come with you, Leiu-sea.” Her pronunciation wasn't always the best, but Mae had learned so much in the following years that Lucy could imagine her sitting in class sometimes, her long hair braided with the shells and precious stones they would find and weave into her hair.

It didn't take Lucy long to start shedding her clothing, jumping right in beside Mae with a splash, casting ripples to the far side of their pool. They would swim together, laugh, tell each other stories of their lives.

 

It was the best time of Lucy's life, those three years before her twentieth birthday. Custom was that by her twentieth birthday, Lucy was to be wed and move with her husband wherever he went. The only exception being in times of war when men were sent off, or if your husband happened to be a fisherman, women were expected to stay home, away from the sea, tending to the house and children.

Lucy's father had informed her that, in the months preceding her birthday, he had found her a suitor.

“But why, father? Why can't I just stay here and take care of you and mother? Why do I have to go anywhere, or marry anybody?” She was crying, the tears streaming down her face so ferociously that sometimes she thought she was going to drown.

“Lucille, that's just the way it is. _Tradition_.”

“To hell with tradition! I'm not the kind of woman to marry! I don't want to! You can't make me!” She had screamed at him, throwing her fists like a child. It was the first time since she had been a child that she'd thrown a fit like she was then.

“I've already paid your dowry. It has been settled Lucille. You are to leave with him the afternoon of your birthday. If you don't, the law is said that we are to be treated as thieves.” He stared into her eyes, mirrors of his own, not having to explain what that meant for them.

“But that's only three weeks away! Father, how could you!?” She had been blubbering so badly, her vision so obscured by tears, that she'd hit her shoulder on her way out the door. When she reached their pool, she hadn't even bothered to shed her garments before she was plunging into the water.

Like she never left, Mae was there, pulling Lucy to her cold body. She cooed in her ear, words that Lucy could recognize as words like “quiet” and “making waves”. With the press of Mae to her body, Lucy began to feel the weight in her chest simultaneously rise, lighter than air, like all the worry was gone, only to crash back to earth as her world shattered as she tried explaining to Mae what was going to happen.

“But I don't want to marry him. It's just not fair!” She pressed her face into Mae's soaking hair, tears mingling with the sea water.

Mae continued to rub soothing circles into Lucy's back, the tips of her claws a light pressure, more calming than painful.

“I just want to stay here with you. I don't want to leave. Mae I-” She's crying even more now, snot dripping from her nose. She wipes the back of her hand across her face, the salt from the sea stinging her eyes. She hears the words Mae is still cooing into her ear. Mermish phrases that she's come to understand.

“Hush my earth, calm yourself as the sea after a storm.”

“Love cannot be left, it travels with the heart.”

“You are my earth, I am your ocean, together we are the horizon, everlasting.”

Lucy pulled back to look at Mae. Her stormy eyes were glossy with her own tears, but none slipped past her dark lashes. Lucy remembered her gramma telling her that pearls were made from the tears of merfolk, that to cry was a precious and rare thing for them.

“Mae...Mae I love you. I don't want to go.” She brought her face close to the mermaid's, her breath jagged and unsteady. They watched each other, eyes flicking between the two, as they pressed their lips together.

Lucy instantly felt chilled from the contact on Mae's cold, wet lips, but her heart burst with flame as her love poured out for the woman in front of her. She closed her eyes, her lips pushing firm, moving against the others'. Mae responded instantly, her tongue flicking out to taste Lucy, opening her mouth for more. Lucy took greedily, pressing her tongue into Mae's mouth, her tongue scraping aginst her teeth-

“Piss!” Lucy cursed, jerking back, her hand flying to her mouth. She pressed fingers against the sore spot in her tongue, coming away red with blood. She stared at it, looking back at Mae who was confused, scared even.

Then Lucy began to laugh. Then she hugged her mermaid, laughing all the while, pressing her lips all over Mae's skin until she began to giggle too, chirping happily.

 

In their remaining three weeks, they explored each other. Lucy learned to not press further than Mae's cold lips, knowing the danger than lurked there. She found out that Mae was ticklish when kissed just below her ear, her shoulder almost bashing Lucy in her chin every time she tried.

They talked, wasting no time to reveal what little details they hadn't yet relented to the other; because now their time as precious. They used to think they had all of the time in the world. That the only thing to come between them would be the hours apart from each other when Lucy was away during the night.

The small stretch of sun warmed pebbles felt nice against Lucy's back as she lay with Mae, the bottom half of their bodies still lingering in the water. They held hands a lot, unable to do much else in any way past touching. They weren't compatible physically. Merfolk weren't born with spare pleasure receptors. The one time Lucy had tried to show Mae how men tried to pleasure women, she'd laughed, stating that her breasts were made for feeding babes only, that no pleasure was received from stimulation. Lucy flushed, laughing and covering her face with her hands. When Mae smiled, taking her hands away in her own, Lucy looked down at the claws there and decided against attempting to educate her any further in the sexual exploits of man.

All physical setbacks seemed to make their love stronger. They didn't waste time with panting breaths and biting lips. They had the time to grow, to bloom with each other. They had time to laugh and sing and make memories. They swam together, explored the other side of the lagoon, where boats couldn't get close enough to the coast to see them, camouflaged safely against the rushing waters.

Mae showed Lucy things in those three weeks she'd been scared to see. Mae took her out to a hidden cove, swimming with great, fast dives beneath the water, rocketing them through the currents at the coast, taking her to caves, showing Lucy the treasures glittering miles below the surface of the crystal clears waters that were yet unpolluted by man.

Lucy made excuses to her parents, stating that she shouldn't have to go to Burns', she was already betrothed and she knew everything they could teach her; her mother had been a good tutor before then after all, she'd batted her lashes, running out with a whoop when they agreed.

They had all the time in the world for three weeks. They made the time, they spent the time, they enjoyed the time. Yet, however much they pushed it to the backs of their minds, the eve of Lucy's birthday came.

“Mae, I want to know what your name really is. What it really means.” Lucy was sitting on a boulder that stood just beneath the surface of the water in the center of their private pool; Mae was floating on the waters' surface, flicking her tail lazily, tracing her claws against Lucy's shoulders on her rotations.

“My name? You know it is the human word-song.” Even with her fair knowledge of the English language, she still ran words together, still pronounced them oddly, in her native tongue sometimes, a random gurgle here, a hiss there.

Lucy sighed. “I know, but what _is_ the song. What does it mean?” She watched Mae in the water, the murky green of her scales flashing iridescent in the dazzling sunlight.

Mae stopped in front of Lucy, taking her hands in her own webbed ones. “Close your eves, Leiu-sea.” Lucy did. “Big breath in, nowt.” It was one word, like newt, but Lucy understood.

“Dream...you are in waves, under them, racing. Bubbles, everywhere, underwater volcano, hot and boiling. It lifts you up, up, up, you are now in sky, flying with sky birds, high like clouds. Smiles, happiness. Your heart,” Lucy can feel Mae's claw-tip ghost over the place where her heart was, beating steadily, “it is air, bright. Lifted. You are now in lights in sky, sleeping in peace, no worry of crushing tides, or of fearsome men. You are love.” Mae's words are clipped, ended by the gentle press of her lips to Lucy's. The pressure leaves her lips and Lucy opens her eyes. She doesn't know that she is crying until Mae brushes the moisture from under her eyes, carefully, her thumb curved so that her claw won't contact Lucy's skin.

“You are a song of love, Mae. You are an ocean's pearl. You are the love to my heart.” Lucy presses her forehead to Mae's, another tear rolling down her cheek, falling to become one with the salt water around them.

Mae kisses Lucy's forehead, pursing her lips so they're full but her teeth are safely veiled. She whiapers the mermish saying that equaled the human saying of 'I love you'. Lucy repeats it in her own words. “You are the storm to my sea, the moon to my tides and the wind to my sky.”

 

After the songs had been sung and the birthday traditions had been celebrated, it was time for Lucy to leave. Her mother was crying again as she fastened Lucy's new shawl shut.

“You come visit when you can. I hope I did well by you.” She sniffled. “I love you so much.” She hugged her again, only coming away so that her father can have his turn to hold in the tears brimming his eyes.

“I know we haven't always gotten along, but, you were my only daughter, my only child, and I love you.” He brought her in for a breath-snatching hug. His next words were almost unheard. “Go see him, before Elijah gets here. Say your goodbyes, and live your life.”

Lucy froze. Her father knew. He didn't know about Mae, but he knew she'd been running off to see someone. She pulled back, looking into his eyes, searching them, curious to know how long, scared to actually know the answer. His eyes were like hers, blue like the sky on a clear summer day, shadowed with grief like a storm cloud looming on the horizon. She hugged him a second time before she was throwing herself out the door, and down the familiar path to her paradise. She heard the sound of a man halting horses and pushed herself to run faster.

She was out of breath by the time she burst through the foliage, chest heaving to restore the ability to speak.

“Mae.” It was barely a breath but there she was, shining in the sunlight that filtered through the gathering clouds that were trying their best to choke the light from the sun.

The mermaid opened her arms and Lucy found herself wading into the chilled water, damp arms holding her close. She shook as she pressed chaste kisses all over Mae's face, even pressing a quick one under her ear, making her giggle. Lucy held onto that sound in her heart.

“Mae, I'm leaving. I love you. I never will forget you, my love, my storm, my moon, my wind.” She pressed kisses in between every phrase. She kept kissing her, murmuring until she was cold from the lack of contact, being led out of the water by strange hands. When she lifted her head to look at her betrothed, she saw for the first time that she held a pearl clutched in her palm.

 

Elijah was not a bad husband, Lucy had to admit it. She wasn't unhappy with him, but he would never fill the hole that the ocean had carved into her heart. He had been so confused that day he pulled her from the tidal pool. He said he could understand why she was crying.

He thought he understood.

She didn't hold a grudge against him, it wasn't his fault. He was a victim in this just as she was. Elijah was kindhearted and treated her with respect. He had come from a humble family of shepherds from the north. Lucy understood when they had to move further up the coast to where the cliffs fell steeply to the water, turning the waves savage and full of wrath.

He understood when she asked if they could move closer to the water.

“It's just...my family had always been fishermen. The sea calms me. I love it.” She had been looking so forlornly towards the east where the sea would be if they lived closer. Elijah had smiled and agreed to find farmland near to the coast.

She felt like she had betrayed him then, even though she wore her pearl around her neck, close to her heart, night and day. He never asked about it, he had even been the one to get it made into a necklace for her.

He himself wore a delicate silver ring on the pinky finger of his right hand.

Lucy never asked him about it.

When they moved to the coast, a small house at the top of the cliff, Lucy smiled more. Which made Elijah smile more.

There tiny home was surrounded by the sky, windy and bright. One day while exploring their new land, Lucy found a jagged path that, once one braved a rocky path similar to the one she first met Me on, deposited you into a small cave that the ocean washed into. The walls were damp with sea-spray but it was perfect. It reminded her of the love she had lost. On warm days, she would sit in the sand, warm in the morning when the sun rose, glaring into the cave.

One day, she walked her way down to the woods where Elijah's sheep would sleep in the shade on sweltering days. She stumbled her way through the trees, looking for a branch the perfect size for an oar.

The one she found was a bit crooked, but it would do. She hid it in her little cave, wedging it between some rocks so that when the tide came in, it wouldn't be lost to the sea. While in town for supplies, she bought herself a whittling knife, hiding it too in the cave. It wasn't well worn like her fathers, but it fit nicely in her hand.

On nights that she couldn't sleep, she would slip from beneath Elijah's protective arm and walk down to the main stretch of pebbly beach and walk by the moonlight. Sometimes he would wake and walk with her, meeting her down by the shore, an extra cloak in one hand, just in case the nights chill got to be too much.

She grew to love him, not like she loved her mermaid. She loved him like she loved a house for being sturdy, protecting her from the wind. Or like she loved the fire for keeping her warm from the winter that threatened to freeze her.

It was the day that she found out that she was pregnant that she went down to the cave to find her oar was gone. She wept into her hand for her child. She cried out to the sea for the love that she couldn't give the one that deserved it. For three months, she would walk up and down the coast, following the beach and the rise of the land, speaking the words of love in that foreign tongue, screaming it to the wind when it shrieked at her over the cliff. She would sing words in that same language, running her fingers through the salty water that entered the cave, dripping it over her showing stomach, murmuring that old phrase that meant more to her than any human 'I love you' ever could.

 

Lucy was halfway submerged in the surf before she realized there were tears on her face. Those cold lips were on hers before she could utter any tangible word.

“Leiu-sea.” Those claws raked lightly down the soft skin of Lucy's cheek, thumb bent back to wipe the tears away.

In her other hand was a roughly carved oar, green and bloated from its time in the sea, only half-finished words engraved down the center of the handle. Lucy saw it and smiled, laughing.

She pulled back, looking at Mae. She looked the same, a little aged like Lucy herself, not so much that it showed physically; not like Lucy's protruding stomach. Mae looked the same, but was now sheathed in ropes of seashells, seaweed and small pieces of coral intertwined with her hair. She had a scar on her forearm, the circular maw of a shark. Lucy placed her fingers gently on it, the same time Mae placed her webbed claws on the massive swell Lucy's stomach had become.

“You have love growing inside of you, my earth.” Her words were soft, admiring, but her eyes were sad. Lucy could see the lightning flash there behind grey-green depths.

Lucy shook her head, placing her hand atop the one already there. “It is not love. I do love him, or her. But they were not made from love. That,” she pointed to the oar, then touched her fingers to the pearl around her neck, “and this were made from love.”

Mae smiled, her jagged teeth seemingly white against the dark shade her lips had become in the chill of the northern water. She took both of Lucy's hands in hers. Lucy could no longer feel them for the numbness that had settled in her skin.

“I found you, my love.” Mae was speaking as pearls skated down her cheeks, landing with soft _thwaps_ in the water where they sank, lost to the tide. “I have found you to tell you I love you one more time. My time is coming to an end, and I must go.” She squeezed Lucy's hands beneath the waves, a silent plea to understand.

The smile faded from Lucy's face, her hands clenched tighter, scared Mae would swim away without another word. Her voice cracked with desperation. “What do you mean? Mae...?” Her voice faded as Mae started to cough. A hand ripped from the water, covering her mouth as she hacked into her palm. Thick black mucus dripped from her lips. She twisted from Lucy, allowing the ocean to clear the discharge from her hand.

Her eyes had hardened when she turned back to the pregnant woman in front of her. Her teeth were darkened with the dank saliva. “My people, and I with them, are dying. Man has poy-sunned our ocean so long. It chokes the life from our bodies. There is no ocean safe from their hate.” Lucy's whole body was shivering. She new she would be sick, but clung to Mae regardless. She had lost her storm, her moon, her sky once, she would not lose her again.

 

Eliza Pearl was born on the night of one of the worst storms the northern coast had ever seen. Lightning flashed in the heavens, illuminating the churning clouds that spat rain so hard it felt like knives were shooting from the sky. The waves were restless against the cliff, breaking with roars almost as loud as the thunder. The midwife from town had stayed with the shepherds for several days, not wanting to be gone from the house when the baby came.

“She's perfect.” Elijah's voice was barely a whisper as he held his daughter for the first time. His eyes twinkled as he beamed at his wife of 4 years, so young and beautiful, he knew her looks and personality would be passed to the life they had created together.

Lucy smiled weakly up at him, sweat making her hair stick to her head, her neck, her breasts. It was mangy with perspiration, she had struggled through labor for close to 15 hours. She wished she had a pair of scissors to chop her hair off again. Oh how she missed those sun filled days.

 

She wasn't able to make it down to the beach until after the storm had passed. Lucy ambled down the walk, falling into the water more often than not on her hidden path to her cave. Her body ached and she was reeling, dizzy from having lost so much blood during the birth.

Her heart was bursting with hope, excited to tell her love the news but Mae was not there. A small pile of pearls was heaped up in the rocks where the oar was wedged, an offering in a silent temple.

Where Lucy had not finished scarring the wood with her words of love, shaky, misspelled words had finished the letters. A webbed hand print stained the wood on the paddle of the oar. There was a splatter of a murky substance that peppered the end of the oar and the rocks around it. Lucy sank to the sand in tears, the wind carrying her grief to the sky.

 

“She jumped that night. From the cliff. Legend says that she gave her life to be with the sea and the love she had found in it. The Goddess Maeva, for which Lucy had named Mae, saw her act of love and restored both their spirits into the ocean. It's said that you can hear them laughing together if you listen closely when you're out at sea. When the moon is full and the wind blows over the cliff from which she threw herself, you can hear her calling the mermish words 'my storm, my moon, my wind'.” An old woman sits in an weathered rocking chair by a crackling fire. She was wrinkled and scarred, white hair a shocking contrast against the tan of her skin. She had a pearl necklace hanging from her neck and a ratty woven shawl wrapped around her bowed shoulders. Her eyes were bright and blue as she stared down at the children sitting on the rug in front of her.

“But what happened to the mermaid?” A little girl clung to the hand of the boy sitting next to her, identical sky blue eyes wide with shock and confusion.

“She died, my dear. Humans polluted the earth so bad that the merfolk in the ocean died from it.” She stroked a knobbly hand, riddled and bent with arthritis down the back of a fluffy grey cat that lay on her lap, snoozing into the sheep's wool blanket that kept her legs from aching in the chill the room held, despite the fire.

“But what about Lucy? She just left her husband and baby girl with no mother. That's kind of selfish.” An older girl sat farther from the hearth, arms crossed over her chest in defiance, when in reality she had listened to every word, drinking it in like the last bit of water from a water skin.

“Lucy was a very troubled individual.” The old woman sighs, closing her eyes briefly. “She never wanted to live an ordinary life like the one that the girls in her hometown aspired to have. She loved Elijah, I really believe she did, but she had given her heart to someone else. Just as he had.” She straightened out her fingers the best she could, revealing a ring on the middle finger of her right hand, where a delicate silver band nestled in the folds of her papery skin.

“The baby wasn't unloved. After Lucy jumped from the cliff into the ocean below, Elijah grieved, but went back to his hometown where the woman that had given him this ring was waiting for him. He had never thought to be able to love her outside of secrecy, but her husband had been a very old man who died when sickness spread after Elijah moved with his wife to the coast. He married her and brought her back to his cliff side home. You see children, he wanted to raise his little girl to love the ocean like her mother had. So he made a boat and, after learning himself of course,” she chuckled as if she'd dove into another memory, “taught her to sail around the beaches. She fell in love with the sea, just like her mother, just like he had hoped.”

The little boy piped up for the first time, holding his stuffed sheep up to his face, half muffling his words. “But gramma Liza, how do you know everything?”

The old woman chuckled again, softer this time. Settling back into her rocking chair, she looked up at the crooked oar that hung above the stone mantle of her fireplace. The stains were as dark as they had always been, the words worn, so faint from beloved use. It had always brought her back home, never steering her wrong. Just like it had steered two hearts together, it had steered Eliza home every time.

“Well little one, my mother was in love with a mermaid, and once you love the sea, it never stops loving you back.”

 


End file.
